Sussex County Sports Blog

By Dan Cleary

2/11/2009 - Heartbreak For Wildcats

High Point’s wrestling team ended its dual-match season last year amid a sea of tears of joy and hugs as the Wildcats finally captured their first state title by thoroughly thumping Sayreville in the Group 3 final at the Ritacco Center in Toms River.

The Wildcats dual-match season came to a sudden end this week, and once again, there were plenty of tears shed in Wildcat Nation, but this time, there weren’t of the joy variety. No, far from it.

In a heartbreaking turn of events for the Wildcats, they were removed from the state team tournament for violating the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association’s “70 percent rule” which requires all teams in all sports which wish to compete in NJSIAA state tournaments to have competed against member schools in 70 percent of its competitions by the state tournament cutoff date set by the state.

For wrestling this year, the cutoff date was Jan. 31, and unfortunately for the Wildcats, they were at 65.2 percent, having wrestling against eight out-of state opponents at two different tourneys earlier this season out of the 23 dual matches they wrestled up to that point.

The Wildcats are currently 23-4 and are at 70.4 percent, but it doesn’t help them now.

As a result, there will be no return trip to the Ritacco Center for a chance at a second straight title and their chances of being named the No. 1 team in the state have taken a major hit.

“It’s an unfortunate situation for the student-athletes of High Point. Unfortunately, this is a very important rule that has to be followed,” Steve Timko, the executive director of the NJSIAA, told the Star-Ledger.

So how could this possible happen? I’m sure when the Wildcats beefed up their schedule by attending “The Clash” in Minnesota at the beginning of January, they knew they would get six out-of-state matches right there. High Point also wrestled at the National High School Final Four in Easton, Pa. later in the month and faced two more out-of state schools.

As a matter of fact, Jackson also went to “The Clash” but still met the 70 percent requirement.

But an unfortunate misinterpretation of the rule was High Point’s downfall, and to its credit, the folks at High Point manned up to it in a statement saying, “We mistakenly understood that we had until the end of the season to comply when, in fact, we only had until January 31…The High Point community is extremely disappointed and saddened by this disqualification. We feel our wrestlers and fans deserve better. The administration is proud of our head coach John Gardner, his staff, our wrestlers and our High Point wrestling community for our present No. 1 ranking in New Jersey.”

Ever since this story broke a couple of days ago, it has been a hot topic among wrestling fans all over the state. Rumors and accusations have been flying all over the place and people are calling for coaches and administrators to be fired.

From my understanding, someone brought the violation of the 70 percent rule to the attention of the NJSIAA and the state asked High Point to verify its schedule, which it did, and the violation was confirmed.

Now, who turned in the Wildcats and why, no one knows for sure except for the party involved. Some might feel they should come public and state the reason why it told the state, but that wouldn’t solve anything and would just raise the ire of the already upset High Point faithful.

The thing is, High Point, whether you like the rule or not, broke the rule and the state had no other recourse. As most readers of this blog know, I am no big fan of the NJSIAA, but its hands were tied on this one, considering there was already a precedent in place when it banned the girls basketball team from Shabazz, the No.1 ranked team in the state at the time, from the tourney for playing too many games.

The real questions here, in my opinion, are two-fold. One, does the punishment fit the crime? And two, is the 70 percent rule a good one?

Let’s address the first question. If you are going to have the rule, then, yes, it needs to have pretty severe consequences or it would be broken every year by some school which had a “legitimate excuse” in its opinion.

Yes, I know you are punishing kids for mistakes made by adults. By making the punishment so severe, the state hopes that would serve as a deterrent, but we all make mistakes.

But under state guidelines, there is no real appeal process on this case unless it can be proven that the state acted in an “arbitrary, capricious or unreasonable manner.” Yes, I know that is legal jargon, but what it means is that you would have to prove that the state had no rational basis to make the rule, but it has been proven in court, it did have reason for the rule, which I will get to later.

My suggestion is that there should be an appeal process that looks at every case on its own merits. Did High Point gain an unfair advantage by going to Minnesota? I don’t think so. It is not like it used ineligible wresters or wrestlers who tested for banned substances.

I do not feel High Point violated the spirit of the rule, it was just a blunder, and unfortunately kids have to pay for it. So does the punishment fit the crime? No, in my view, but it is up to the member schools to change it.

All right, the second question, is it a good rule? For High Point this week, obviously, no. The Wildcats were not looking to violate any rules and were serving as great ambassadors for the state of New Jersey.

But here is a little background on the rule I dug up when researching for this blog. The rule was adopted in December of 1999 by the member schools and enacted in the Fall of 2000. The previous threshold was 50 percent, and according to the lawsuit filed by Phillipsburg in 2003 in an attempt to get out of the Skyland Conference to join the Lehigh Valley Conference (Pa.) and have the rule waived, the rule stated:

“The purpose of this legislation is to limit out-of-state competition to influence schools to remain in conferences within the state to reduce funding and exposure provided by outside out-of-state tournaments and their sponsors, and lastly, it would require all NJSIAA tournament teams to place a priority on scheduling New Jersey teams above a national schedule and national agenda.”

Phillipsburg had argued that due to its close proximity to Pennsylvania and its status as an “Abbott District” it had a hardship due to travel expenses and time spent traveling. The district was shot down when it was properly noted that the wrestling team traveled all over the state and the nation and that wasn’t a problem.

But according to the lawsuit, when the rule was discussed, it was aimed at stopping small parochial basketball powerhouses from playing a national schedule for recruiting purposes yet still being eligible for the state tournament.

In my opinion, it is a good rule, only if the state allows teams to get waivers prior to the start of the season for certain situations, like High Point’s. But once again, that is up to the member schools to make that change.

All in all, it has been a horrible ending to what has been a thrilling dual-match season in New Jersey. My heart goes out to the High Point seniors and the Wildcat faithful who raised the money to send the kids to Minnesota.

It just brought back the bad memories of Pope John’s football team having to forfeit games in 1994 for using ineligible players and its girls basketball team being denied a chance a chance to play in the SCIL Festival semifinals because it had played too many games in 1999.

There were no winners in those situations and there is no winner now, just a terrible memory that will last a lifetime. Here is hoping the Wildcats bounce back and do their best at the district and region tournaments next week.

That’s it for now, see you on the sidelines.

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Sussex County Sports Blog

By Dan Cleary

2/11/2009 - Heartbreak For Wildcats